Women Of The C-Suite: “Don’t be afraid to let go!”

With Serena De Comarmond

Don’t be afraid to let go! Sometimes as the boss it is easy to feel that no one can do a job or task better than you but a truly successful leader is a master of delegation. You are only one person. Focus on the things you are best at and delegate the rest.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Serena De Comarmond. Serena is a professionally trained TV host, entrepreneur, best-selling author, matchmaker, producer and more! She enjoys drawing her audience in by exuding warmth & genuine passion. Aside from her work in the Entertainment Industry, over the last 12 years Serena has become a recognised part of the entrepreneurial community, creating business in the hair, beauty and tech industries and most recently in the travel and dating space. Serena’s passion project is her matchmaker vacation business called iHeart Travel. iHeart Travel creates overseas vacations for singles looking for love. It is through this project that Serena has gained valuable intel on the dating world and has taken this knowledge and turned it into a book called “Love Me? Love Me!” and two upcoming TV series’ airing next year in the U.S. — one on Pop TV and another on Lifetime.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

For 10 years I focused on innovating hair and beauty brands, which was a lot of fun but also a lot of hard work. I had warehouses in multiple countries, over 50 staff and thousands of clients. It was rewarding financially and at times it was fun but I got to a point where I was working 50 hour days and really not hitting any of those life fulfilment goals so I decided to make a change and to work full time on a true Passion project and that’s why I started my matchmaking vacation company. iHeart Matchmaking. It is the combination of my two great passions. Travelling the world and falling in love! I thought to myself, if I can spend my days travelling to exotic locations and helping lonely people to find the one and be part of them falling in love and feeling intense joy and happiness, what could be better than that!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

iHeart Matchmaking had been running for a couple of years when I was cast to be in a reality show in Australia called Instant Hotel. While I was starring in the show I would chat to the producers and show creators about what I did for a living and they all kept saying, “you should turn your matchmaking business into a tv show” and so when we finished filming I decided that I would. A year later, the show has been picked up by POP in the USA and we begin filming in August! Not only that but another show, also about love and relationships, called True Love Story is set to commence filming in January. With all of these doors opening for me in hollywood I truly feel I am “on path” and that the world really needs this injection on love in their lives.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Hahaha the first mistake I made when I was creating my first singles vacation was that I thought it would be a good idea to include a 3 hour alcohol package at the singles parties we held each night. We were in Thailand, where alcohol is pretty cheap so I thought it would be a great marketing tool to get people to come to the vacations. What I didn’t anticipate is that the singles would all drink like FISH!! I lost a lot of money and sleep on that trip, let me tell you! Not a smart business move.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

My company is completely different from other singles vacation companies because our philosophy is that you need to heal yourself first, and fall in love with yourself before you can fall in love with someone else, so for the first couple of days on my trips, me and my team spend time helping people to get rid of any past relationship baggage they may have, which then allows them to be more honest and open on their dates, which in turn helps them to make deeper and more authentic connections with people. This I believe has been the key to my success as a matchmaker.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes the two shows I have coming up are going to be game changers. With Love Me Love Me, the reality dating show, we are going to allow our viewers to learn, heal and grow alongside our contestants by giving them access to a website that will have self help videos made by myself and my team of healers, that will help contestants to help heal themselves as well. We are also going to show the world that dating shows can be positive and inspiring. There will be no nasty trolling on our shows, our focus is love.

True love story is a game changer. On this show my celebrity guests will show their authentic and vulnerable selves. I believe that by sharing their true stories and emotions, the audience will be able to learn from their mistakes and benefit from their relationship and love advice too.

What advice would you give to other female leaders to help their team to thrive?

Empower and Praise. These are two things I have always done with my team. I believe that if you have a personal goal to work toward, then the fire inside you burns brighter so I always like to spend one on one time with my team members to find out what THEIR big dream or goal is, and then set them on a path to make that happen. Also always remember to praise and compliment your staff. When a team member feels appreciated and valued they will enjoy their job more, respect you more and feel more fullfilled as a person.

What advice would you give to other female leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

Don’t be afraid to let go! Sometimes as the boss it is easy to feel that no one can do a job or task better than you but a truly successful leader is a master of delegation. You are only one person. Focus on the things you are best at and delegate the rest.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There are 100000 people that I am grateful for. In particular those friends and colleagues and family who have been my cheerleaders and who have scraped me off the floor in times of crisis but my best friend Sturt Hinton is someone who stands out. I am grateful for him because he is my sounding board. If i have an issue, it is always him i call first. sometimes just so he can tell me, I am being an idiot and to snap out of things, and other times for real business advice. He is my rock.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

My whole brand ethos is about helping to spread the light. With iHeart Matchmaking and my two shows we want to give our singles and our audience a little drop of happiness whenever they interact with us. Life is tough. My businesses are here to make life happier and more fulfilling through loving yourself, loving others and giving back to the world.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

At the moment I am working on a movement that inspires people to do random acts of kindness everyday. I am of the strong belief that you never feel happier or more fulfilled than when you are in the service of others and giving back. There is something about the feeling it gives you that you just can’t get anywhere else. I want to educate people about this phenomena and then give them practical ideas on how they can help someone in need, every single day. This will be done thru an app that sends you an intent to do good every morning when you wake up. I believe people want to do good, but most of them just don’t know how or where to access the opportunities. That or they think it will be too hard. This app provides them with opportunities to do good each day and the more they do the happier they will feel.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Be the change you want to see in the world” — I love this quote because it tells you that if you see something in this world that you are not happy with. Something that disturbs you, then instead of complaining about it or letting it continue to hurt you, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!! Be a game changer, a world changer and force for the evolution of mankind. Be the change you want to see in the world!

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

I absolutely love everything Will Smith and his wife Jada are about at the moment. The way they have raised their kids and the way they encourage people to live their dreams and believe in themselves is so inspiring. I would love to collaborate with them for my app as they are all about what I’m about. Being the change.

Thank you so much for this. This was very inspiring!

Thanks for the opportunity guys. You can find more information about my books here-

He is also the CEO of Authority Magazine's Thought Leader Incubator, which guides leaders to become prolific content creators. Yitzi is also the author of five books.

In 2017, he created the popular, “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me” series that highlights the empowering lessons learned from the experiences of high-profile entrepreneurs and public figures.

This series has inspired a mini-movement among writers, with scores of writers worldwide profiling inspiring people to share their positive, empowering, and actionable stories.

A trained Rabbi, Yitzi is also a dynamic educator, teacher and orator. He currently lives in Maryland with his wife and children.

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